social media news

Facebook’s Big Changes: Action Items for Marketers
Social-Media Site Streamlines Apps Before Fanning Across the Web

Facebook’s latest round of updates announced this week will affect everyone: marketers, developers, publishers, consumers and anyone else remotely connected to their site and platform. And some of the changes will especially impact marketers.

In a rare move for any company, Facebook not only announced what changes will take place, but it publicly offered a timeline for when it will happen. Of course, the timeline may shift, and some specifics have yet to be ironed out — I’ve found in consulting both with Facebook executives and analysts covering the announcements that, many of the details aren’t yet known and a number of important questions cannot yet be fully answered. However, marketers should still appreciate the wealth of information Facebook has provided on these changes, including a gallery of screen shots. …Read more

Companies and executives are finally beginning to really jump on the social media bandwagon, and that’s fantastic. However, for social media to fully work (for everyone), businesses and brands need to be able to evaluate the impact their social media use is having, both positive and negative. Measuring social media ROI isn’t impossible, but it can be difficult because many of the pieces that need to be evaluated are difficult to track. …read more

With the popularity of social media ever on the rise, it’s no surprise that industry experts are weighing in on SM trends for 2010.

Things to look for: Increased popularity in mobile and sharing functionality, tighter workplace regulations on employee profiles and a continuation in companies looking for cost-effective ways to serve their customers through access to online support – further proof that companies are looking to social media for cost-savings and optimal monetization.

The BBC is attempting to embrace social media by appointing a social media editor in its newsroom and redesigning its website. As the September traffic figures for US political blogging site Huffington Post reveal, the strategy is clearly a wise one. In short: embracing social media boosts traffic.

The figures speak for themselves: after the Huffington Post launched a Social News site with Facebook Connect in the middle of August, comScore credited the site with 6,825,000 unique users in September. That is up impressive 50% year on year, and slightly overtaking the Washington Post website. According to the Nielsen’s September report, the Huffington Post is at 9.47 million unique users, compared with the BBC’s 7.2 million.

When Staci D Kramer from paidContent got a chance to interview the Huffington Post CEO, Eric Hippeau, he revealed some more details: Facebook referral traffic is up 48% since the launch and accounted for 3.5 million visits, so 15% of all the comments now come from Facebook. And according to the Huffington Post’s internal statistics, those numbers continue to build. … read more

Social media has been in full swing this week, from Google Wave to Susan Boyle. Both Google and Microsoft decided to launch new products, while the social media starlet Boyle sang her heart out on the finale of Britainís Got Talent. There has been no shortage of social media buzz.[Read More]